Kimberly Blaeser, Professor of Creative Writing and Native American Literature at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, will lead the Waukesha/Milwaukee kickoff event for the NEA Big Read Wisconsin Reads The Round House on Thursday, March 1st at 7:00 p.m. at the Woodland Pattern Book Center (720 E Locust Street in Milwaukee). Blaeser’s poetry reading and introduction to The Round House is the first of several events taking place in March and April in Milwaukee and Waukesha. Blaeser will lead the last of three Community Conversations about The Round House on April 5 at the Milwaukee Public Museum (800 W Wells St, Milwaukee), which will include a 6-6:30 Engagement Table: Capturing the Voices of Native American Activism, with the Community Conversation following at 6:30-8 PM.

Blaeser is a writer, photographer, scholar, author of three poetry collections, and the editor of Traces in Blood, Bone, and Stone: Contemporary Ojibwe Poetry. In addition, she served as Wisconsin’s Poet Laureate for 2015-16. Of Anishinaabe ancestry and an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe who grew up on the White Earth Reservation, Blaeser is an editorial board member for the “American Indian Lives” series of the University of Nebraska Press and for the “Native American Series” of Michigan State University Press.

The Big Read is a collaboration of University of Wisconsin Colleges and Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwa Community Colleges’ students, faculty, and staff with the objective of bringing communities around the state together to discuss Louise Erdrich’s novel, The Round House.The Round House centers on a Native American family and community as they try to come to terms with the brutal attack and sexual assault of one of their members; it is told through the perspective of the victim’s son, Joe, who is coming of age during the time of the ordeal. The book also investigates the convoluted laws and jurisdictions that have historically made it difficult for legal authorities to prosecute crimes that occur on Indian reservations. Through the sharing of Erdrich’s book, the hope is to broaden people’s understanding of their world and communities, and the troubling issues that are faced within them.

Over 70 Big Read events are taking place across the state in the cities and surrounding areas of Milwaukee, Waukesha, Rice Lake, Baraboo, Marshfield, Hayward/LCO, and West Bend/Germantown in March and April, including discussions, films, lectures, art exhibits, and story-telling workshops, as well as a poetry-writing workshop for students at the Indian Community School of Milwaukee led by graduate students in creative writing Franklin K.R. Cline, Peter Burzynski, and Kenzie Allen at UW-Milwaukee. For additional information on the Big Read program and upcoming events, please visit the website at http://wisconsinreads.org or contact project director lee.friederich@uwc.edu.